The Sony Ericsson C902 is the latest Cybershot from Sony Ericsson and the first of the ‘C’ series Cybershot phones. It is, in a way, the forerunner to the much awaited C905 - The first 8.1 MP camera phone from Sony Ericsson. Yet it does manage to hold out its own and has created a decent fan following. It takes over from the K850i which was moderately successful but was dogged down by many controversies and finally defeated by the Nokia N82 which reigned supreme in the 5 MP category. It aims to compete with the Samsung G600 and the Nokia N82 and the upcoming Nokia N96 and Motorola Zine ZN5. It is slim, sleek and light and has a very simple yet stylish design. It is officially, the slimmest 5 MP cam phone to date. In this review, we check out its features, its pros and cons, and whether it does manage to please its targetted audience - the cam junkies.
Sony Ericsson C902 Specifications:
- Dimensions : 108 x 49 x 10.5 mm
- Weight : 107 gms
- Display : 2.0″ TFT, 256K Colors, QVGA 240 x 320 px.
- Camera : 5 MP Cam (2592 x 1944 px) with LED Flash, Auto Focus, Image Stabilizer, Secondary
- videocall cam
- Memory : 160 MB Internal memory
- Connectivity : GPRS Class 32, EDGE Class 10, 3G HSDPA, USB 2.0
- Bluetooth : Bluetooth 2.0 with A2DP
- Price : $480 (Approx)
Other Key Features:
8 camera touch keys, Java MIDP 2.0, FM radio with RDS, MP3/AAC/MPEG4 player, TrackID music recognition
Design and Display
The Sony Ericsson C902 scores rather high on the design front. At dimensions of 108 x 49 x 10.5 mm, it is a sleek, slim and stylish phone. It does weigh slightly more relative to its dimensions - about 107 gms. It has a normal candybar form factor and is encased in a metal body. It has a glossy finish in the front faces which adds to its style.
The display is a characteristic Sony Ericsson - 2.0″ TFT, 256K colors with a resolution of 240 x 320 px. Sony Ericsson desperately needs to improve it’s device displays and add bigger, better displays with more colors. Coming back to the C902, the display is nothing impressive, just the normal type. What does impress, are the 8 touch sensitive camera keys add to the sides of the display. They can be used to switch between and adjust many settings like gallery, autofocus, shoot modes, timers and flash mode. The display is good with optimum brightness and contrast, nice vibrant colors and good sunlight legibility.
The keypad feels a bit crowded with the keys thrown in very close to each other. It is a standard Sony Ericsson keypad, with a D Pad, soft keys, ‘Call’ and ‘End’ keys. THe keypad has rather subtle backlighting which makes the corner keys slightly illegible, but that shouldn’t matter much as you get used to the keypad. On the left side of the phone is the Universal port, while the right side sports the dedicated Camera key and the Volume rocker. On the back, there is the 5 MP camera with flash hiding beneath the sliding cover.
OS and Interface features
The C902 sports the usual Sony Ericsson Firmware based OS with the familiar, simple yet effective interface found in all Sony Ericsson phones, spiced up with some new features. It sports a changed menu structure which can be changed to three layouts - Grid, Rotating and Single Icon views. The interface has had quite a few visual improvements with new animations and effects. It has cooler menu transitions and icon effects, overall a much refined and responsive interface. It also sports a highly improved camera interface with 8 new touch sensitive camera buttons to access advanced camera settings.
Camera and Multimedia
It is commendable as to how Sony Ericsson fitted a 5 MP cam in that 10.5 mm slim body, even after doing away with the Xenon flash that is a must in all camera phones. The highlight of the C902 - the camera performs well with awesome shots, low noise levels and nice crisp images with accurate color reproduction. It has many advanced features like face detection, image and video stabilizer, BestPic, auto-rotate, macro mode and more. All of these can be adjusted using the 8 new touch sensitive camera buttons which are active only in camera mode. They are also useful for accessing the photo gallery and adjusting the autofocus mode, shoot mode, scenes, timer and flash mode.
It can record video at QVGA resolutions at 30 FPS, which is a bit of a letdown considering that the N82 and many other new phones can easily do VGA at 30 FPS. The PhotoFlash LED performs good, but nowhere near a Xenon Flash. The addition of the LED flash also helps in conserving the battery life considerably. The C902 sports the new improved Cybershot v2.0 interface which is quite efficient and provides access to almost all of the camera features. The bulit-in accelerometer automatically auto rotates the images when the phone is tilted. The face detection works as expected. It is a capable camera phone, the presence of a Xenon Flash would only have added to its list of features. The BestPic feature automatically takes 9 pics in quick succession so you can choose the best among them. The image stabilizer prevents blurred pics in low light conditions.
Photos, Music and Videos can be accessed from the Media Center menu. The flash based interface simply rocks. It has a new addition though, a Games section. You get the NFS Pro Street game bundled with the phone. It can be controlled using both the D Pad and the accelerometer. Sony Ericsson is trying to sell it as a complete entertainment device. The C902 also supports TV out. It also has a standard FM Radio with RDS support and Auto Scan to automatically search and save radio stations. The Music player supports the standard TrackID feature allowing you to identify songs and download them. The gallery includes a Picture editor and blogging support. The Music Interface can be set to Auto Rotate, Portrait or Landscape.
Other Features
The C902 features many connectivity options like Bluetooth v2.0 with A2DP, USB v2.0. It also has GPRS, EDGE, 3G but no WLAN. However we are not complaining as it isn’t expected in media centric phones anyways but again most of its competitors do have Wi-Fi. It has a 930 mAh Li-ion battery which delivers about 8 hrs of talktime and lasts about 2 days or more with moderate usage.
It comes bundled with a charger, earphones, a USB data cable, a connectivity CD, the use manual and a 2 GB M2 card.
Pros
- Great Design and Build Quality
- Good Battery
- Great Cam & Music playback
Cons
- Rather Expensive
- No Xenon Flash
- No Wi-Fi
Final Words
The Sony Ericsson C905 is a good buy for those looking for a great camera phone with similar music capabilities all packed together in a small footprint. But it isn’t able to better the Nokia N82 which we still consider a better option to any other 5 MP phone. It maybe lose out a bit in features but makes up for it in style and design. It is a decent buy, though if you already have a K850, we wouldn’t advise you to upgrade.
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